Do retailers notice which bank card you use?

johndavid29c

If you mean the staff serving you.. Hardly in a position to look down on anyone when they work Tills.. If you mean the shop itself'behind the scenes' for say profiling purposes then yes its possible. The first 6 digits identify the bank and type of card 4921 81xx xxxx xxxx for example is a loyds debit platinum

JuicyJesus

More seriously...

Somewhat uniquely, Barclaycard credit cards come up as their own particular card type, "BARCLAYCARD VISA" on receipts, and Barclays debit cards (used to) come up as "CONNECT DEBIT". And of course, American Express is its own thing altogether.

So there's a little bit of room to judge there. Most of the time though, and speaking from experience, shop assistants don't give a !!!!. This is especially true now that Visa Electron and Solo have gone away, so there's functionally no difference between the debit or credit card of a rich person with their bank's magic super-duper Premier current account and someone with that same bank's basic account. And there's better than even odds that nobody will actually see the type of card you have anyway.

It's theoretically possible for a retailer to profile people based on the card BINs, but I'm not aware of a retailer doing this and can't see a reason for them to.

johndavid29c

Retailers with clubcards such as tesco will use the bin because knowing if a person typically uses a credit or debit card, a paid for account(club lloyds), will all go towards(along with other factors) to building a profile for other offerd and services

Flo2108

The only thing they’ll see internally as a company is if the card is an electron or normal debit card. Electron suggests basic bank account, or someone who doesn’t like contactless.

boo_star

Flo2108 wrote: »

The only thing they’ll see internally as a company is if the card is an electron or normal debit card. Electron suggests basic bank account, or someone who doesn’t like contactless.

Electron doesn't exist anymore so no, they won't see that.

JuicyJesus

boo_star wrote: »

Electron doesn't exist anymore so no, they won't see that.

Yep. All the special "poor credit" debit cards have gone away. It always consistently amuses me to see shops advertising that they take Solo when Solo hasn't existed for over eight years.

Till operators will only see (if anything) a short string that indicates the card type, usually one of: "VISA DEBIT", "VISA CREDIT", "VISA", "MASTERCARD", "MASTERCARD DEBIT", "AMERICAN EXPRESS", "MAESTRO" and the occasional "CONNECT DEBIT" and "BARCLAYCARD VISA" (because Barclays are the only people who seem to have ever given the slightest care about how their debit and credit cards are branded). Upshot is, unless you bank with Barclays, nobody will notice and to be honest nobody really cared before either.

Flo2108

boo_star wrote: »

Electron doesn't exist anymore so no, they won't see that.

It quiet clearly does exist. Every basic account has an electron card and if an account holder doesn’t want contactless, they’ll be issued with an Electron card.

Sooooo

JuicyJesus

Flo2108 wrote: »

It quiet clearly does exist. Every basic account has an electron card and if an account holder doesn’t want contactless, they’ll be issued with an Electron card.

Er. No.

Well, OK, partially true. Visa Electron does still exist. But as far as I'm aware no or at the very least very few UK banks still issue them. Electron is a distinct card scheme from all-authorised Visa Debit cards and has its own acceptance mark, BIN range and logo. It also has different scheme rules.

https://www.barclaycard.co.uk/business/files/BIN-Rules-UK.pdf

If you say you don't want contactless, you'll get a Visa Debit card without contactless. You won't get a Visa Electron. Similarly, if you have a basic bank account you may not even get a non-contactless Visa Debit, you may get a contactless all-auth Visa Debit - but for pretty much any bank I can think of, you won't get an Electron.

scalextric

Visa Electron does still exist, I have one

keef-WhatStandards

They always ask in Tescos if I want to pay with that as well, as my Tesco credit card is also a points card.

Do people actually use their Tesco credit card to get points then pay with a different card?

I gave up asking for card that wasn't contactless, as that just seems to be the norm these days. Cards rarely get seen at all.